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> Within educational contexts, being well-behaved is seen as rational and ‘good’, while resistance to authority is seen as irrational or ‘bad’. Since mindfulnes

> Within educational contexts, being well-behaved is seen as rational and ‘good’, while resistance to authority is seen as irrational or ‘bad’. Since mindfulness encourages young people to be calm, complacent and attentive, it can promote these moral hierarchies: of good or bad behaviour, and hence, well-behaved or naughty students. This seems to me much more like a problem with typical "educational contexts" than with mindfulness. In my experience, you try and be more mindful of your emotions so you can make better (perhaps more efficient) decisions and changes in your life in response to those emotions. And that naturally conflicts with environments where the expectations are very rigid and more or less set in stone e.g. where there's a clear "authority" (like a teacher) in control and very precise boundaries about what kind of behavior is acceptable. > As Kelly, 13, explained: I really hated it when I had to close my eyes … I felt really uncomfortable because there were people in the group that I didn’t trust … Some of the practices did help me but it would be better if you could choose to do it with people you like. Again, I think this is much more a problem with the typical school environment than with mindfulness. What does it say that a child doesn't feel comfortable simply closing their eyes momentarily in some environment? Not good things if you ask me. Frankly, I've often thought it's cruel and unusual to place large numbers of children together for large periods of time as is done in a public school setting. Children can be ruthless when they bully each other and readily succumb to their worst instincts.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
The fact that someone doesn't feel comfortable about something doesn't mean that their feelings are warranted. When dealing with anxiety disorders or phobias, the last thing experts recommend is avoidance of that which causes anxiety. In fact, exposure therapy helps drastically with it.
- waterhouse 6y ago
  Ok, how does exposure therapy actually work? Wiki sez: "Exposure therapy is based on the principle of respondent conditioning often termed Pavlovian extinction.[16] The exposure therapist identifies the cognitions, emotions and physiological arousal that accompany a fear-inducing stimulus and then tries to break the pattern of escape that maintains the fear. This is done by exposing the patient to progressively stronger fear-inducing stimuli.[17] Fear is minimized at each of a series of steadily escalating steps or challenges (a hierarchy), which can be explicit ("static") or implicit ("dynamic" — see Method of Factors) until the fear is finally gone.[18] The patient is able to terminate the procedure at any time." That is, to my interpretation, the idea is to expose the patient to the scary stimulus under conditions that are kept as nice, safe, and comfortable as possible, so that the Pavlovian part of their brain will learn to stop associating the stimulus with fear. This is entirely different from "keep throwing them into the feared situation, against their will and without any particular effort to make it more safe or pleasant".

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

The fact that someone doesn't feel comfortable about something doesn't mean that their feelings are warranted. When dealing with anxiety disorders or phobias, the last thing experts recommend is avoidance of that which causes anxiety. In fact, exposure therapy helps drastically with it.

waterhouse 6y ago
Ok, how does exposure therapy actually work? Wiki sez: "Exposure therapy is based on the principle of respondent conditioning often termed Pavlovian extinction.[16] The exposure therapist identifies the cognitions, emotions and physiological arousal that accompany a fear-inducing stimulus and then tries to break the pattern of escape that maintains the fear. This is done by exposing the patient to progressively stronger fear-inducing stimuli.[17] Fear is minimized at each of a series of steadily escalating steps or challenges (a hierarchy), which can be explicit ("static") or implicit ("dynamic" — see Method of Factors) until the fear is finally gone.[18] The patient is able to terminate the procedure at any time." That is, to my interpretation, the idea is to expose the patient to the scary stimulus under conditions that are kept as nice, safe, and comfortable as possible, so that the Pavlovian part of their brain will learn to stop associating the stimulus with fear. This is entirely different from "keep throwing them into the feared situation, against their will and without any particular effort to make it more safe or pleasant".